Chris Yates’s Hardy Altex № 2 MK V.
The reel Chris fitted to Walker’s MK IV when he fished at Redmire. SOLD
£500.00
When Hugh Miles was filming the Redmire Pool sequence for A Passion For Angling, Chris took Walker’s MK IV with him (he co-owned it with Chris Ball). To the legendary Walker rod he fitted his Hardy Altex. Chris duly landed a twenty pound Redmire common for the camera.
Shortly beforehand, Len Arbery had serviced the reel and on returning it, he told Chris that the Altex was the Rolls Royce of fixed spool reels. If anyone was qualified to make such a judgement, it was the late and much missed Len Arbery.
Chris bought this very lovely reel from a tackle shop in Petworth in the nineteen eighties. Its original owner had been a Colonel Yates.
This is a truly delightful reel in the most useful size for coarse fishing. It’s one of the earlier MKVs. Later ones had an on/off anti-reverse switch on the top of the body in front of the stem.
It’s in very good mechanical condition with attractive patina and tremendous provenance. It appears many times in Chris’s articles and books.
The reel comes with a signed letter of provenance Chris has written on Golden Scale Club headed paper.